Deathly Blue

As mushrooms go, in their 
infinite disguises, this one is
ghastly. Not the bright, cheerful
burnt umbra resembling orange peel
or white ruffles, or miniature ranks
of stalagmites or those charming 
golden toadstools, but the pallid
sickly blue of a corpse. Fungi
are fascinating organisms given
to suddenly appearing where nothing
had been, to the nakedly observant
eye, but on the forest floor, under
the damp mass of desiccated
foliage, a thriving network of
filaments born of spores link to
fibrous, woody decay, a platform
for new life constantly emerging.
In the breakdown of cellulose; old
tree limbs and trunks, fallen and
buried in the rich loamy humus
of the forest, fungi transform death
back to life. Heed this: long-dead
corpses of forest animals also feed
fungal growth. From death emerges
life in fungal form of deathly blue.